Dark Phrases about Femininity: Madness and Imprisonment in Ntozake Shange for Black Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the rainbow is over Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first reading of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" was in 1955. It sparked a national controversy regarding the antiestablishment movement and counterculture. His recurring phrase is equal parts avant-garde and angry, striking at the post-World War II American vision, a vision that Ginsberg seems to consider oppressive and suffocating. The work begins with a statement about the generation's potential: I've seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, hungry, hysterical, naked, shuffling through the black streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, stone-headed hipsters. 'angel that burned for the ancient celestial connection to the starry dynamo in the mechanism of the night…(1-3) Ginsburg's opening passage then speaks of the alienation associated with postwar American culture and its subsequent intellectual conformity (Galen 17) . The rhythm of the poem seems to contextually further emphasize the desire to escape from the status quo, even if the speed of society relegates the group to the margins of the cultural mainstream. Much like Ginsberg's “Howl,” Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf challenges society's perception of black women in 1960s urban prisons through the use of matching unconventional language to a non-traditional delivery method. Shange's combination of dance, acting and regional lexicon over the spoken word creates a more visceral experience for the audience than can be achieved solely through an intimate reading. Much like in “Howl,” Shange’s inclusion of an alternative aesthetic allows for a greater sense of empathy for women and the alienation associated with being both female and black. Furthermore, this choreopoetry exposes the jagged edges of the madness endured by these women, instilled in them by their environment. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange is a sophisticated depiction of the conflict between sanity and madness, submission and survival, imprisonment and emancipation, a conflict that arises from a history of oppression and awaits a cultural revolution. The women in Shange's choreopoem alternate between states of anxiety and self-induced desperation and levels of madness guaranteed by social constructions. For example, on graduation night, Ulinda is described as crazy because she starts attacking one of the boys at the party. Since the reasons surrounding the altercation are not disclosed, the general term “crazy” is applied to his behavior. The lady in blue is encouraged to leave her friend alone and go with Bobby, to whom she "surrenders in a Buick" (Shange 10). The separation of the lady in blue from her friend is, as Andrea Rushing notes, symbolic of the socio-cultural disconnect between black women and the community at large (Rushing 145). She adds that this separation has a “devastating psychic effect” on black women, causing them to lose esteem and self-esteem (144). This separation is exemplified by the lady in yellow when she says, “I've lost it…to be alive and to be a woman and to be of color is a metaphysical dilemma…my spirit is too old to understand the separation of soul and gender ..." (Shanghai 45). Shange seems to recognize the many levels of isolation that the black woman faces: isolation within society, within community, and within the sense offractured self. In contrast, after the lady in orange finishes her speech about dancing, the others chime in, saying “we must dance to keep from crying/ we must dance to keep from dying” (Shange 15). This form of mental desperation is much more intrinsic: it has been internally generated and adapted to the world-torn senses of self within each of the women. This passage also alludes to the beginning of a new community among black women in reaction to the individual isolation each of them endures. Carol Christ compares this solidarity among women to a “search for the meaning of experienced nothingness and a search for new being” (Christ 98). Through madness and desperation, women unite in an attempt to be reborn. The transcendence from madness to sanity is similar to the journey from submission to survival. Whether these women survive through dance, music, or, as the lady in yellow puts it, “intimacy and tomorrow,” each of them has something to focus on to keep them alive. Carol Christ states that there is even recognition that these women know that they may have to become as violent as their surroundings if they want to survive (Christ 110). However, it is the moments of solidarity between women that once again culminate in pride and hope for survival. The lady in orange offers a decree to everyone and says, “hold your head high as if it were a ruby ​​sapphire/ I am a poet/ who writes in English/ come and share the worlds with cu” (Shange 16). Similarly, Shange closes one of her poems detailing male/female relationships with a moment of unity: she held her head in her sisters' laps absorbing tears each realizing how much love there was between them how much love there was between them love each other love like sisters (42) This passage illustrates the transformation of the fractured woman into the collective, communal woman who cannot be destroyed by men. As Carolyn Mitchell adds, this united woman, empowered by love and sisterly touch, “cannot be divided by the competition” of women against women for the affections of men (243). Ultimately, Shange reconciles the madness, submission, and feelings of total isolation with passages of empowerment and hope for the days ahead. The women's discussion of the various forms of apologies uttered by men renews their confidence, ultimately leading to the lady in blue's statement: "one thing I don't need / is more apologies...beating my heart to death / talking about sorry" (Shange 52-3). Furthermore, the exchange of “laying on hands” between the women represents the actualization of the fractured self and the realization that there is power in unity. It is this communication that Carolyn Mitchell says is crucial to the rebirth of these women. They have been “cleansed and bound together by these unique experiences” and no longer wonder whether they are animals, demons, or madmen (246). their words and that they no longer need anyone else to sing their songs (246). The rebirth experienced through the collective sharing of experiences culminates with the lady in red: it was too much, I fell into a stupor until I saw the one tree. took me in its branches held me in the breeze made me dawn dew that cold at dawn the sun wrapped me swinging in pink light everywhere the sky spread over me like a million men I was cold/ I was burning/ a child and endlessly weaving garments for the moon with my tears I found God in myself and I loved her / I loved her fiercely (Shange 63) In this passage, Shange alludes to a sense of balance between the feminine trees and the male sky, each existing simultaneously in harmony. Mitchell states that the culmination of these earthly images symbolize healing and rebirth and, 1975